As Lie The Dead Read Online Free PDF Page A

this?” Phin asked loudly. An effective off-switch on the banter.
    “Mine, I guess,” I said. Wyatt offered his hand; I let him pull me to my feet.
    “You guess? Are we trespassing or not?”
    “Not. Did you hear the rumor that I died and rose again, hence not looking like my old self?” He nodded. “Well, this apartment belongs to the womanyou’re staring at, and to her dead roommate, so by default, it’s mine.”
    Phin looked around, his head turning in jerky moves—just like a bird. “How’d the roommate die?”
    My heart skipped a beat. “I killed him.”
    “Evy—” Wyatt started.
    “What?” I snapped. “I pulled the trigger, didn’t I?”
    “Alex was dead long before you shot him. He was helping you because he wanted to. You didn’t force him.”
    I retreated to the other side of the bedroom. As alien as the white and pink décor had seemed the first time, I found an odd comfort in it now. Peace and a connection to childhood. Girlishness I’d never known during my own violent youth.
    “Am I missing some important backstory here?” Phin asked.
    “Yes,” Wyatt said, at the same time I said, “No.”
    Phin rolled his eyes. “I’m glad we cleared that up.”
    “Look, Phin,” I said, “you sought us out for a reason. What do you want?”
    “It can wait.”
    “For what, exactly?”
    “A shower. No offense, but you both stink.”
    We did. After smelling it for the last few hours, it was an odor I had largely ignored. Goblin blood smelled like seawater with a hint of rotting-meat sweetness, and now that we were indoors, the effect was worse.
    “We’ve got time,” Phin said. “Clean up, and then we’ll talk.”
    I eyed the closed bathroom door; my stomach roiled. “Easier said than done.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “Because the bathroom is where my host killed herself.”
    Much like two days ago, in front of the closet door where I’d been tortured and killed, I hesitated in front of another door. Apprehension tightened my stomach. Perspiration broke out across my forehead and between my breasts. I clenched both hands around the clean clothes I’d liberated from Chalice’s closet, afraid if I loosened them, they’d begin shaking.
    Such an innocuous door. It was painted ivory and made of that hollow, fake wood that slams hard in a gust of wind. Not a hint of red or pink on its smooth, unmarked, and chip-free surface. No sign of the horror once contained behind it. Everything of
me
said to go inside and stop being a wuss. The lingering knowledge that, only four days ago, Chalice had gone inside and drawn a hot bath and slit her arm open kept me rooted outside.
    You’re being ridiculous, girl. Get your stupid ass in there and clean up
.
    I grabbed the brass knob with a steady hand and turned my wrist. The gear squealed softly. I pushed. Warm, musty air drifted out, tinged with the lemon scent of cleaning solution. My hand went to the switch plate left of the door and flipped the first two switches. Like an old habit.
    Light flooded the small bathroom, which was as sparkling clean as it had been before. The only real difference was a blue bath towel, half falling off itshanger. Alex must have left it there. The day I dragged him out of his safe little world—
    Nope. Couldn’t think about that.
    I put my clothes on the closed toilet seat, grabbed a towel from the small hutch behind the door, and stripped. Added the knife and ankle sheath to my collection of clean things. The ruined clothes—not even mine but borrowed from a were-cat’s girlfriend—went straight into the trash. At the last minute, I fished out the cell phone Kismet had given me and put it in a basket on the back of the toilet, secure among a couple of clean hand towels and extra rolls of toilet paper.
    I reached for the water knob, my fingers closing over the angled plastic. Something sad and determined crept through my mind, made suddenly more powerful by the spray of hot water through the showerhead. The dried blood